Japanese telecom firm Softbank is mulling a monster deal that would see it buy a majority stake in U.S.-based Sprint Nextel for as much as $23 billion, reports said Thursday.

Japan's leading Nikkei business daily said Softbank, the country's third-biggest mobile carrier, could launch a bid worth over 1.8 trillion yen ($23 billion), without citing sources.

In yet another landmark achievement, Bank Audi has announced the launch of the Bank Audi ABC MasterCard Credit Card, Lebanon’s first co-branded card offered by a bank in collaboration with a prominent shopping mall, a press release said Wednesday.

The new card was unveiled during an event held at Les Jardins de la Villa Audi at Sofil on Thursday, September 27, in the presence of key executives from the three institutions, including Samir Hanna, Group CEO of Bank Audi sal - Audi Saradar Group, Robert Fadel, Chairman & CEO of ABC malls and Michael Miebach, President, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard Worldwide.

The International Monetary Fund is happy for debt-battered Greece to have an extra two years to bring its runaway deficit in line with the demands of global creditors, its chief said Thursday.

Christine Lagarde told a news conference in Tokyo it would take time before Athens is able to tame its budget overrun to agreed levels, in comments that add weight to the move to push back a deadline to 2016.

China will "lose out" by not sending its top two finance officials to global economic talks in Japan this week, the IMF's chief said Thursday, weighing into a bitter dispute between the Asian giants.

Christine Lagarde called on Beijing and Tokyo -- embroiled in a spat over a chain of islands in the East China Sea -- to settle their row quickly, adding that "countries in this region are very important for the global economy".

The euro weakened in Asia on Wednesday as traders sold the unit over fears about the eurozone's fiscal woes and a gloomy world economic outlook from the International Monetary Fund.

The European common currency was changing hands at $1.2859 in Tokyo afternoon trade against $1.2881 in New York late Tuesday, while it edged down to 100.58 yen from 100.77 yen.

Anti-poverty activists posing as digger-driving investors staged a symbolic land grab in Tokyo on Wednesday as they called on world finance chiefs to help keep food prices under control.

Seven young men and women, dressed in dark suits and flashing thousand-yen bills, rode toy diggers and excavators over a map of Africa, picking up paper fruit and vegetables.

Japan's Toyota on Wednesday announced a global recall of 7.43 million vehicles, including its popular Camry and Corolla models, over a possible fire risk, in a fresh blow to the firm's reputation for safety.

The country's biggest automaker ordered the recall, which amounts to slightly more vehicles than it sold worldwide in its fiscal year to March, because of a fault with its electric windows.

Europe must do more to tackle its fiscal crisis, which is heaping extra pressure on an already-strained global financial system, the International Monetary Fund warned in a new report Wednesday.

Despite some new policy measures, among them a bond-buying program aimed at helping debt-riddled nations tame their borrowing costs, the risks of a world credit crunch and recession loom, the IMF said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday said that a "tough path" of austerity was the best way for Greece to overcome its economic crisis as thousands of protesters demonstrated a few blocks away.

Merkel, the leader of Europe's largest economy -- and chief crisis paymaster -- also praised the course of Greek reforms and repeated her desire to keep Greece in the euro-zone, a badly-needed message of support to the country's embattled government.

Russia confirmed on Tuesday signing more than $4.2 billion in arms deals with Iraq during the second half of the year that make it the nation's largest weapons supplier after the United States.

A joint statement issued after talks between visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev said the deals were agreed during delegation visits this year and totaled "more than $4.2 billion."